January 0, igib. 
LAND AND WATER 
Britain's productive capacity, destroying her 
economic eq.uilibrium, and making her incapable of 
giving to the Alliance that financial support which 
is necessary to its continuance and to its victory. 
It has been ignorantly argued against this form 
of objection that it is an opposition which " prefers 
money-making to victory." But the verdict of 
history is on the side of the objectors. The 
defeat of Napoleon would have been impossible 
but for the finance of Great Britain, and the wealth 
of Great Britain was the direct fruit of her sea- 
povver, rightly and ruthlessly employed to maintain 
and conserve it. Napoleon was finally the victim 
of defeat in battle. But Waterloo- was un- 
questionably the fruit of the lorig siege which 
the British Fleet had maintained from 
Trafalgar until 1815. But if Great Britain had 
in 1806, 1807 and 1809 raised collossal armies in 
England and dislocated her trade and ruined her 
finances to do so, she would not have been able to 
maintain her navy, she would not have been able 
to subsidise first Spain and Portugal, and then 
Austria and Prussia, she would have failed in encom- 
passing Napoleon's defeat. , h^or it is very doubt- 
ful if she could have achieved with her own forces in 
battle what she finally achieved by the other war 
process which she adopted. 
The moral of the situation then should be 
plain. There is a limit to the number of men 
that we can put into the field, but it does not 
follow that there is a limit to the services which 
Great Britain can contribute to the Allied cause. 
Had the siege of Germany been ruthless and com- 
plete from the beginning, had we never been 
hampered by the imbecile provisions of the 
Declaration of London, had Germany received 
no cotton from overseas since August, 1914, 
had our blockade when it was proclaimed in March 
last been a real blockade and its effectiveness not 
frittered away by concessions to neutrals here 
and to neutrals there, Germany might already have 
been brought to the point when further resistance 
would not only be hopeless but would be recognised 
by all to be hopeless. Our failure to make 
the siege a real one has made it necessary for us 
to contribute more and more largely to our share 
' in the other process of war, namely battle. Indeed 
the measure of our increased military sacrifice is 
in itself a measure of our naval failure. Every 
shipload of goods that goes into Holland for trans- 
ference to Germany must now be balanced by a ship- 
load of soldiers from England to France. And, 
to our shame be it said, the supplies which are 
reaching Germany through neutral countries to- 
day are by no means all of them neutral supplies. 
It 'is not to be doubted that great quantities of 
British exports either find a German destination, 
or replace for neutral consumption, neutral goods 
exported. Bad as the present state of things is 
there is a distinct danger of -their becoming worse. 
The Washington correspondent of the Times has 
been openly urging that America should be allowed 
to send tinned milk to German babies. But there 
is ample milk in Germany for the babies 
The sophistry of the argument is transparent. 
That it should be uttered at all is an index to the 
want of firmness with which the whole business of 
the blockade has been managed. But that it has 
been managed without firmness should not sur- 
prise us. It has been managed almost entirely 
by diplomatists and civilians— men of the highest 
aiid most honourable character, of the most generous 
instincts, and of proved supremacy in their calling. 
But the point and object of that calling is to 
prevent hostilities and to preserve peace and 
kindly relations with all, and siege is a process of 
■aar. If it is to be made effective for war it 
should be handled and directed by men of war 
and not by men of peace. It is a naval process and 
the men of war should be naval men, and as it 
is a process on which all the Allies are united, 
and are commonly interested, the blockade should 
not be a British blockade but an Allied blockade, 
THE WHITE PAPER. 
The White Paper published on Tuesday morn- 
ing shows that our blockade to-day is a sterner 
affair than it was. But it does not show that 
it is as stern as it could be. The omission of the 
statement is that we are not told the total of the 
imports that actually reach Germany. No agree- 
ments with traders can really prevent or seriously 
check such imports because, if importation is 
free, goods cannot be followed by a private associa- 
tion from owner to owner until they reach the 
actual exporters'Jiands. Again what is the use of 
forbidding the exjiort to Germany of Chicago lard 
taken into Holland, if all the Dutch lard is exported, 
and the Hollanders live on the foreign a.rticle im- 
ported to replace it ? There is no alternative, if the 
embargo is to be absolute, to making the neutral 
Governments party to it. And the White Paper 
shows how this can be done, without illegality 
or warlike threats. 
We are then face to face with a very grave 
situation, in which the necessity for a new kind 
of action and of prompt action is quite vital to 
us. V/e have set our hands to the conquest of 
Germany and we must conquer in battle. But 
the stricter the siege the lighter the task of those 
who fight. We can, if we choose, make the siege 
absolute. It seems madness not to. We must 
get from the fleet the ablest officers that can be 
spared, we must make them, say Second and Third 
Sea Lords at the Admiralty, and put the blockade 
absolutely into their hands. 
The blockade may involve and very probably 
will — forbidding all imports entering the neutral 
countries contiguous to Germany, except under a 
definite pledge from the Governments that neither 
they nor their equivalent in home produce shall be 
exported over land or by sea into Germany. If 
it is objected that this course is virtually forcing 
the neutrals into war, the reply is obvious To 
the extent to which neutrals are feeding Germany 
to-day they are taking part in the war already, and 
there are'obvious forms of persuasion that cannot 
be confused with threats of force. There is not 
a single belligerent Allied country that covets a 
square yard of territory of Sweden, Denmark, 
Norway or Holland. There is not one of them 
that is not prepared to guarantee their territorial 
integrity, and, that is not willing to repay to them 
any loss of their normal neutral trade which com- 
pliance with these demands may involve. 
LOSS OF THE "NATAL." 
There appears to be no reason for supposing 
that the loss of the Natal was occasioned by any- 
thing but an accident. It would be easier to bear 
had it occurred in battle. As it is the tragedy 
seems senseless and without compensation of any 
kind whatever. My personal connection with th' 
ship was longer and more intimate than v 
any other. In the years 1909 and 1910 sh-- 
designated for a series of experiments w' 
Q 
V 
